Waste pickers, also referred to as scavengers, itinerant waste buyers (IWBs), or informal waste workers (IWWs), play a crucial role in Kathmandu's waste management but face significant challenges.
Lack of Formal Recognition and Social Stigma:
- The informal waste sector lacks legislative recognition in Nepal's Solid Waste Management Act of 2011, meaning their contributions are not formally acknowledged by the government. This often leads to their exclusion from policy decisions and development programs.
- Waste pickers face profound social stigma, misbehavior, and humiliation from the public and officials. This stigma is often linked to their perceived low social status, caste (historically associated with "untouchable" castes like Podey, Chyame, Halahulu, Kullu in Nepal), language, and origin. Waste work is commonly considered suitable only for those at the lowest socioeconomic ranks.
Hazardous Working Conditions and Health Risks:
- They operate in extremely unsanitary and dangerous environments at landfills, transfer stations, scrap centers, and even on streets.
- They are exposed to toxic substances, sharp objects, medical waste, dust, and fumes from open waste burning. This exposure leads to frequent injuries (cuts and bruises) and chronic health issues like respiratory diseases.
- Most waste pickers lack proper protective equipment. They often sort waste with bare hands and sticks.
- Their living conditions are often precarious, with many residing in informal settlements along riverbanks, lacking continuous access to water, electricity, and sewage, and exposed to natural disasters like floods.
Low and Unstable Income:
- Earnings are generally low and unstable, fluctuating based on seasonal variations (lower in rainy season) and market demand for recyclables. They are often paid per kilogram rather than a fixed wage, leading to long hours for minimal returns.
- Some affiliated waste pickers are promised higher daily wages but paid less in reality by scrap dealers.
- Street waste pickers are particularly exploited and vulnerable, working long hours for unfair payments.
- Most waste pickers are poor, illiterate, and migrate from Nepal's Terai region or neighboring India, engaging in waste picking as a survival strategy.
Vulnerability and Lack of Support:
- They are vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen and scrap dealers.
- The majority remain unorganized, lacking member-based cooperatives or associations, which limits their collective bargaining power for better working conditions and formal recognition.
- Government attempts to tax informal waste operators (scrap dealers) through measures like VAT on scrap materials have led to protests, as it threatens their labor-intensive business model.
- Government plans for modern, mechanized SWM systems often pose a threat to the livelihoods of existing informal waste workers, potentially displacing them without adequate inclusion plans.
- Waste pickers also face mistreatment from police and metropolitan drivers. Access to municipal landfill sites can be denied to waste pickers.
Gender Disparity:
- Women are predominantly involved in waste picking roles at scrap centers and landfills, often in non-intensive sorting work, whereas men are engaged across all aspects of the waste sector.
- Women are often responsible for household waste management but may be excluded from decision-making processes in formal waste management programs.
- For women, job satisfaction is closely linked to wages, leading to higher dissatisfaction for those earning less.
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